Weekly News & Homework: September 26th-30th

Happy Autumn! This week we will be reading and writing all about fall. 

We are so excited about our field trip next Tuesday! Please send your child to school this day in a normal shirt (we will be throwing their brand new field trip t-shirt over their clothing) and without a snack (snack will be provided). Please keep an eye out for field trip permission slips being sent home and return them ASAP. Students will NOT BE ABLE TO GO ON THE FIELD TRIP WITHOUT A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP :( Thank you! If you have not done so already, please do not forget to donate towards the field trip under Dollar A Day! Here is the link: Dollar A Day.  

What Are We Learning This Week?: 

Sight Words: TAKE, AN, BECAUSE, UP. 

Letter Team:  OW/OU (like in COW, FLOWER/OUCH, HOUSE) and the long OW sound (like in YELLOW SNOW).  

Word Family:  -AN. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with the word family -an (can, man, pan, etc.) 

Reading: This week, we will begin reading books about Autumn and leaves. We will also begin Reading Groups this week and Book Bags. (See homework section for more information!)

This week, we will also learn about matter as we read a big book together about matter. We will learn that matter is anything that takes up space. In this book, we will learn that when we are reading or writing a word that begins with a vowel, we put "AN" in front of that word - for example, "an elephant" instead of "a elephant" - please reinforce this at home in writing and in speech. 

Writing: We will continue to work on our writing goals. We will begin focusing on choosing a topic to write about and write 2-3 sentences on one topic.

Math: We will continue our fun unit on shapes this week as we explore that we can join shapes together to create new shapes. We will continue working with 2D flat shapes and 3D solid shapes, exploring the number of faces and the vertices of each shape. As always, we will also continue counting, identify, order, write, and count numbers to 30, learn the days of the week, months of the year, how to read and extend patterns, and identify what number comes next. 

Leadership: We will continue to discuss ways to ACT SAFELY at school and we will continue to check in on our behavior each day, making sure we are Respecting, Owning our actions, and Acting Safely. 

Homework: September 26-30

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (AN, BECAUSE, TAKE, UP), letter teams (OW and OU), and word family (AN - pan, fan, man). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day. 

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and adding, changing and deleting sounds in words.  

Reading: This week we are starting Book Bags! Book bags will come home every day and need to be returned every day. Inside of your child's book bag will be a book we are working on in class. This may be another paper book or it may be a book chosen from our classroom library. Please have your child read these books to you every day. More information about book bags will be sent home Monday along with your child's book bag. 

Also, continue to play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Go on RAZ-Kids Online Reading. Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - we want to give you plenty of opportunities to just READ, READ, READ!

Writing: Write every day in your at-home journal. Practice proper penmanship using the lines to help you. Practice writing your sight words of the week. Practice using an uppercase only at the beginning. Some students should now be working on writing one to three sentences on the same topic. Some students are still practicing writing their names, letters, and sight words. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Study the 3D Shapes that came home on Friday and ask your child to name each shape and describe the attributes. (Example, "This is a cone, it has one circle face and one vertice.") Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. 

QR Codes:  Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. Please print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long. 

Turn-In Homework: This week, we will be reading all about fall. Write one sentence about your favorite autumn/fall activity. Draw a picture to go with your sentence.

Note: If you visit the following link (Sharing Paper), you'll find a great printable writing page with a spot for writing and for a picture! Feel free to print off a bunch of these pages to use for turn in writing homework each week :) 

Weekly News & Homework: September 19th-23rd

We had so much fun making apple pies! Thank you for all of your donations and a special thank you to all of our fabulous parent helpers

for ALL of your help baking our pies! It would not have happened without you!  This week we will finish our unit on apples by making applesauce together! YAY!

Thank you to the families that attended our Parent Workshop last week. I really appreciate you taking the time to join me in the classroom and I hope that it was informational and helpful. :) 

We are getting excited about our field trip on Tuesday, October 4th to Los Rios Ranch in Oak Glenn. Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to chaperone - if you have volunteered or would still like to volunteer, we will need your $7 cash admission fee BY FRIDAY (the 23rd!!!).  If you haven’t yet turned in your $7 to chaperone, please do so ASAP. We need to get our head count to Los Rios Ranch. The chaperone money is paid directly to your class teacher and NOT to dollar a day. You may pay me directly at dismissal, but the best way is to put your $7 into an envelope and send it to school in your child's folder. Thank you! We are so excited to have so many wonderful chaperones joining us. 

Also please do not forget to donate towards the field trip under Dollar A Day! Here is the link: Dollar A Day. For this field trip, we are asking for a $20 donation and unfortunately, we are unable to go without the proper funds. Thank you so much for your support! 

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: COME, AT, SAID.

Letter Team: CE/CI (we are learning that the letter C can make a soft sound when it is followed by an E or I like in "cent" and "city").  

Word Family: -IN. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with the word family -in (bin, fin, tin, etc.) 

Reading: This week we will learn what "quotations" are. We will read a big book together every day about our silly monster friends and use "quotations" when they say something. We will continue to read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed and finish our author study on Mo Willems. Students will continue to read little books in class that include sight words and letter teams. Please keep practicing them at home! Many of our reading goals are to master our letters and sounds. Please keep working on this at home. Our classroom goal is 100% letters and sounds by November!

Writing:  We will continue to write in our journal every day, each striving to accomplish our writing goals.  

Math: We will continue working on 2D flat shapes and 3D solid shapes.  We will explore the number of faces and vertices each 3D shape. We will also continue to identify, order, write, and count numbers to 30, learn the days of the week, months of the year, how to read and extend patterns, and identify what number comes next. 

Leadership: We will continue to learn how to ROAR in the classroom. The acronym ROAR stands for Respect self, others, and property, Own your actions, Act safely, and Rise to servant leadership. This week, we will discuss the A: Act Safely. We will talk about ways that we can act safely in and out of the classroom. 

Homework: September 19-23

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words(COME, AT, SAID), letter teams (CE and CI), and word family (IN - bin, fin, win). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day. 

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and adding, changing and deleting sounds in words.  

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read the paper books that come home to live in your Home Book Box. Go on RAZ-Kids Online Reading. Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - we want to give you plenty of opportunities to just READ, READ, READ!

Writing: Write every day in your at-home journal. Some students should now be working on writing one to three sentences on the same topic. Some students are still practicing writing their names, letters, and sight words. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to practice counting, identify numbers out of order (make number flashcards!), practice number writing, practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks. Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. 

QR Codes: Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. Please print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long. 

Turn-In Homework: This week, we will be discussing the next letter of our leadership, ROAR: A - ACT SAFELY. Please write one sentence about how you can act safely at school or at home. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Your child may attempt to write this sentence themselves, or you may dictate the sentence your child would like to write.

Note: If you visit the following link (Sharing Paper), you'll find a great printable writing page with a spot for writing and for a picture! Feel free to print off a bunch of these pages to use for turn in writing homework each week :) 

Weekly News & Homework: September 12th-16th

The class had so much fun tasting apples on Friday.  This Friday, we will be making apple pie as we continue our study on apples. Thank you for signing up on ParentSquare to bring items! We could not do it without you! 

Electives will begin Monday! If your child is participating in an elective, you may send a lunch to school with him/her on that elective day and lunch supervision will be provided for your children. Kindergarten electives are from 12:50-1:20 and the elective teachers will dismiss your children at 1:20 on the ramp. Please be aware that some electives may last until 1:30, depending on the elective. The Success Academy elective will not begin until next week.

Save the Date! We will be having a Kindergarten Parent Workshop on Monday, September 12th. I would like to invite all parents into the classroom on this date from 2:00-3:00 to learn ways to better support your child at home in the areas of foundational reading skills, writing, and math. We will go over our kindergarten goals and common core standards for the year and learn strategies to help your child at home. Childcare will be provided down at the playground for ILCS students on both of these dates. I hope you are able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity! 

We are so excited to announce that our first field trip is planned! We will be going to Los Rios Ranch in Oak Glenn on Tuesday, October 4th. We will be leaving school by bus at approximately 8:30 in the morning and returning around dismissal at 12:30. The students will get to meet Johnny Appleseed, tour the apple orchards, and even make our very own apple cider! In order for our kindergarten classes to go on this field trip (and all future field trips this year), we are asking for donations to be made to our Dollar A Day program through the school. For this field trip, we are asking for a generous donation of $20 per student. This will help cover the cost of the apple farm, the bus, and the very special kindergarten field trip t-shirt that your child will wear on all field trips this year. Unfortunately, if our kindergarten team does not receive donations, we will not be able to go on this wonderful field trip :(  We are also looking for volunteers to join us and chaperone our field trip. The cost for chaperones is also $7.  If you are interested in chaperoning for our field trip on this day, please email me directly at bbobrink@inlandleaders.com. The $7 chaperone fee needs to be paid in cash directly to your child's teacher, not through Dollar a Day. On Friday, September 23rd, we will need to give our final head count to Los Rios Ranch, so if you would like to chaperone, please email me by this date. We apologize for any inconvenience, but siblings and little ones are not allowed on this field trip due to the safety of our kindergarten students you will be chaperoning.  Also, be on the look-out for the field trip permission slip that will be coming home in your child's Take Home Folder as we get closer to our field trip. We are so excited for this excellent field trip with your children! 

Here is the link to donate on Dollar A Day: 

Dollar A Day Link

We will be using Dollar A Day monies for ALL field trips. Thank you so much for your support! 

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: YOU, AND, IT FRIEND.

Letter Team: WH (like in what and whistle).

Word Family: AT - like in bat, cat, rat, sat, etc.

Reading: We will continue to read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed. We will also read lots of funny books by Mo Willems. Students will continue to read little books in class that include sight words and letter teams. Many of these little books have been coming home with a star, which means the student has read the book to me fluently. As students practice reading fluently, these books will continue to come home. Please keep practicing them at home! 

Writing: We will continue learning to put spaces between each word, use an uppercase at the beginning of each sentence with lowercase letters throughout, and use a period at the end. We will continue to use our sight words in our sentences and use our sound chart to help us sound out the words we do not know how to write. We will go over writing goals at our Parent Workshop. 

Math: This week we will learn all of our 3D shapes. We will discuss attributes of these 3D solid shapes and learn how many "faces" and vertices are on each shape.  We will continue to practice number identification, number writing, days of the week, months of the year, shapes, and counting on. 

Leadership: At ILCS this year, we are ROARING. The acronym ROAR stands for Respect self, others, and property, Own your actions, Act safely, and Rise to servant leadership. We will continue to discuss the O in class -  OWN YOUR ACTIONS.  Our goal is to have students take ownership of their own behavior as we all strive to be leaders in our classroom and school. 

Homework: September 12-16

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (YOU, AND, IT, FRIEND), letter teams (WH), and word family (AT - bat, sat, cat, mat, fat). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day. Have your child read the word, spell the word, read the word. We will have a Sentence Test on our sight words every Friday. A sentence test means we will be asking your child to write a sentence that we give them using our sight words of the week. We will not only be looking for correct spelling of our sight words, but also for an uppercase at the beginning, spaces between words, a proper punctuation at the end. An example of a sentence is, "We can see a man." It may be a good idea to have a practice Sentence Test with your child on Thursday night. 

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and adding, changing and deleting sounds in words.   

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read the paper books that have been/will be coming home to live in your Home Book Box. Go on RAZ-Kids Online Reading. Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - we want to give you plenty of opportunities to just READ, READ, READ!

Writing: Write every day in your at-home journal. Practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing ABC's uppercase and lowercase (Aa, Bb, Cc). Also practice writing your sight words of the week and sight word dictation sentences for our sentences test on Friday.

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to practice counting, identify numbers out of order (make number flashcards!), practice number writing, practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks. Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. 

QR Codes:  Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. Please print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long. 

Turn-In Homework: We are learning all about the life cycle of an apple. Please write one sentence about the life cycle of an apple (from seed to tree to blossom to apple).Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Your child may attempt to write this sentence themselves, or you may dictate the sentence your child would like to write.

Note: If you visit the following link (Sharing Paper), you'll find a great printable writing page with a spot for writing and for a picture! Feel free to print off a bunch of these pages to use for turn in writing homework each week :) 

Weekly News & Homework: September 6th-9th

I hope you enjoyed the three day weekend with your families! We are looking forward to a short, but busy week in kindergarten! There is a lot of information and I appreciate you taking the time to read. 

School picture day will be THIS Friday, September 9th! Be on the look-out for a flyer being sent home soon!

Electives will begin next Monday, September 12th. The list of elective classes will be posted this week. If your child is participating in an elective, you may send a lunch to school with him/her on that elective day and lunch supervision will be provided for your children. Kindergarten electives are from 12:50-1:20 and the elective teachers will dismiss your children at 1:20 on the ramp. Please be aware that some electives may last until 1:30, depending on the elective.

A special thank you to our classroom mommy helpers for helping last week! We enjoyed our first week with you. 

This week, we will be tasting apples and writing about which color apple we like the best. Thank you for checking Parentsquare and signing up to bring apples!

I have submitted our Scholastic book orders and they should be here soon! 

Save the Date! We will be having two Kindergarten Parent Workshops on Monday, September 12th and Monday, September 19th. I would like to invite all parents into the classroom on these dates from 2:00-3:00 to learn ways to better support your child at home in the areas of foundational reading skills and math. We will go over our kindergarten common core standards for the year and learn strategies to help your child at home. Childcare will be provided down at the playground for ILCS students. I hope you are able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity! 

We are so excited to announce that our first field trip is planned! We will be going to Los Rios Ranch in Oak Glenn on Tuesday, October 4th. We will be leaving school by bus at approximately 8:30 in the morning and returning around dismissal at 12:30. The students will get to meet Johnny Appleseed, tour the apple orchards, and even make our very own apple cider! In order for our kindergarten classes to go on this field trip (and all future field trips this year), we are asking for donations to be made to our Dollar A Day program through the school. For this field trip, we are asking for a generous donation of $20 per student. This will help cover the cost of the apple farm, the bus, and the very special kindergarten field trip t-shirt that your child will wear on all field trips this year. Unfortunately, if our kindergarten team does not receive donations, we will not be able to go on this wonderful field trip :(  We are also looking for volunteers to join us and chaperone our field trip. The cost for chaperones is also $7.  If you are interested in chaperoning for our field trip on this day, please email me directly at bbobrink@inlandleaders.com. The $7 chaperone fee needs to be paid in cash directly to your child's teacher, not through Dollar a Day. On Friday, September 23rd, we will need to give our final head count to Los Rios Ranch, so if you would like to chaperone, please email me by this date. We apologize for any inconvenience, but siblings and little ones are not allowed on this field trip due to the safety of our kindergarten students you will be chaperoning.  Also, be on the look-out for the field trip permission slip that will be coming home in your child's Take Home Folder as we get closer to our field trip. We are so excited for this excellent field trip with your children! 

Here is the link to donate on Dollar A Day: 

Dollar A Day Link 

We will be using Dollar A Day monies for ALL field trips. Thank you so much for your support! 

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: LOOK, HERE THIS. 

Letter Team: CH (like in "cheetos") and OO (we are learning that OO can make two sounds: OO like in "look" and OO like in "pool".)

Word Family: AM - like in yam, ram, Sam, Pam, etc. 

Reading: This week, we will begin reading books about apples and Johnny Appleseed. We will also read lots of funny books by Mo Willems. Students will continue to read little books in class that include sight words and letter teams. Some of these little books will come home soon. Please keep them inside your special home book box that you shared on the first week of school and practice reading them every day! More paper books will be coming home throughout the year - if they have a big star or stamp on them, that means your child has read it for me fluently and they can now keep them at home! 

Writing: We are writing a big book together about science tools using sight words we have learned so far. We will be studying these science tools and how and when we use them. We will continue learning to put spaces between each word, use an uppercase at the beginning of each sentence with lowercase letters throughout, and use a period at the end. We will continue to use our sight words in our sentences and use our sound chart to help us sound out the words we do not know how to write.

Math: This week we will continue to learn about shapes! We will also be working on sorting, patterns, and counting. We will learn to count by ordinal numbers (first, second, third...). 

Leadership: At ILCS this year, we are ROARING. The acronym ROAR stands for Respect self, others, and property, Own your actions, Act safely, and Rise to servant leadership. For the next several weeks, we will be discussing the O in class -  OWN YOUR ACTIONS. We will talk about what that means and how we can own our actions at school. Our goal is to have students take ownership of their own behavior as we all strive to be leaders in our classroom and school. I will also be giving away Roar tickets. Roar tickets are received when a student is caught "Roaring" (respecting and owning their actions). Every Friday, Roar tickets are chosen to go to the school's treasure box.

Homework: September 5-9

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Please make flashcards for our sight words of the week (LOOK, HERE, THIS), our letter team of the week (CH and OO) and our word family (AM - Pam, Sam, ram, etc.) Study these flashcards every day. Have your child read the word, spell the word, read the word. We will have a Sentence Test on our sight words every Friday. A sentence test means we will be asking your child to write a sentence that we give them using our sight words of the week. We will not only be looking for correct spelling of our sight words, but also for an uppercase at the beginning, spaces between words, a proper punctuation at the end. An example of a sentence is, "We can see a man." It may be a good idea to have a practice Sentence Test with your child on Thursday night. 

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and adding, changing and deleting sounds in words.  

Reading: Your child will soon bring home an envelope with little paper books that we have been working on in class. These can now live at home in your special book box you made a few weeks ago! Have your child practice reading these books at home. 

Reading homework every week will include Smarty Ants. 

Writing: Our writing homework will change throughout the year and may look different for each student since each student may be at a different place developmentally. I would like all students to practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing your ABC's both uppercase and lowercase. You can also practice writing your sight words of the week in a short sentence. We are learning to start our letters at the TOP! Keep practice writing the ABCs uppercase and lowercase letters!

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher. Make number flashcards and have your child identify numbers out of order. Practice number writing! Practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks. Ask your child to name different attributes of shapes. For example, "What shape has three sides?" or "How many vertices does a rectangle have?" Your child will also be bringing home "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class. Please take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. 

Please continue to log on to Dreambox for extra math practice each night. 

QR Codes:  Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. Please print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long. 

Turn-In Homework: This week, we will be discussing the next letter or our leadership, ROAR: O - OWN YOUR ACTIONS. Please write one sentence about how you can own your actions at school or at home. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Your child may attempt to write this sentence themselves, or you may dictate the sentence your child would like to write.